West Virginia Studded Tire Season: November 1 to April 15, 40 PSI Cap

The governing provision is W. Va. Code § 17C-15-37, titled "Tire equipment restrictions; rules and regulations as to certain tires." Subsection (c) opens with a flat ban: no tire moved on a highway may carry on its periphery any block, stud, flange, cleat, spike "or any other protuberance of any material other than rubber which projects beyond the tread of the traction surface of the tire." Studs are lawful in West Virginia only because paragraph (3) carves them out of that sentence for part of the year, which is why the dates and the pressure limit read as conditions on a permission rather than as a standalone winter-tire rule.

The season runs from November 1 to April 15 of the following year. Both endpoints are written into the statute rather than set by the Division of Highways, so the window does not move with the weather and no agency announcement extends it after a late West Virginia snow. From April 16 a studded tire is once again nothing but a protuberance projecting beyond the tread, and the (c) prohibition applies to it.

The 40 psi proviso is the part of § 17C-15-37 that catches people out. The Legislature wrote it "in the interest of highway maintenance," and it bars studded tires "which are operational with a recommended air pressure greater than 40 pounds per square inch" on every vehicle except school buses. The measure is the pressure the tire is built to run at, not the pressure in it on the day, so a heavier light-truck or commercial casing rated above 40 psi cannot be studded for West Virginia roads even in the middle of the November-to-April window, while a passenger studded tire rated at or below 40 psi can. School buses are the one named exception, and the statute names no others.

Chains are not on the same clock. Paragraph (2) of the same subsection permits "tire chains of reasonable proportions upon any vehicle when required for safety because of snow, ice, or other conditions tending to cause a vehicle to skid." West Virginia sets no calendar limit and no pressure limit on chains; the trigger is the road condition and the only stated limit is that the chains be of reasonable proportions. Paragraph (1) separately allows farm machinery to run tires with protuberances that will not injure the highway.

Two neighbouring rules in the same section round out what may touch a West Virginia road surface. Subsection (b) prohibits operating any motor vehicle, trailer or semitrailer "having any metal tire in contact with the roadway," with no seasonal exception at all. Subsection (a) requires every solid rubber tire to carry at least one inch of rubber above the edge of the flange around its entire periphery. Subsection (d) then gives the Commissioner of the Division of Highways, and local authorities within their own jurisdictions, discretion to issue special permits for traction engines or tractors running movable tracks with transverse corrugations, and for farm tractors and other farm machinery that could not otherwise use the highway under chapter 17C.

A studded-tire violation is charged under W. Va. Code § 17C-15-6(a), the penalty section for the whole equipment article. It is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of not more than $100 for a first conviction, not more than $200 on a second conviction within one year, and not more than $500 on a third or subsequent conviction. The heavier penalty in § 17C-15-6(b), which adds jail exposure of up to ten days, twenty days and six months, reaches only the brake sections at §§ 17C-15-31 and 17C-15-32 and not the tire section.

A vehicle running studs out of season can also be reached through § 17C-16-1, which forbids moving any vehicle on a highway unless its equipment is in good working order and adjustment as chapter 17C requires. Enforcement is on the road rather than in an inspection bay: § 17C-16-4(a) has the Superintendent of the West Virginia State Police require a certificate of inspection only once every two years for ordinary registered vehicles, covering "the mechanism, brakes, and equipment of every vehicle designated by the superintendent," and a biennial appointment cannot track a permission that opens on November 1 and closes on April 15.

Under § 17C-16-4(c) the Superintendent may ask the Commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicles to suspend the registration of a vehicle that, after notice and demand, is not equipped as chapter 17C requires.